


I can feel the darkness coming, And I'm afraid of myself, (Call my name and I'll come running, 'Cause I just need some help)

by Werepirechick



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Corruption, Doomed Timelines, F/M, Gen, Mind Control, One Shot, Tumblr Prompt, also for my love of powerful women, canon compliant up to the end of the space arc, not entirely sure if I can say there's a happy ending, the major character death tag is technically untrue, these poor kids I just can't let them be, this can be partially blamed on my need for April to be an actual character for once, this got way out of hand before I even wrote it, you'll have to read to find out why
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 06:56:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7608235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Werepirechick/pseuds/Werepirechick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Donatello should have seen it, the steady change in one of the people he held closest to his heart.</p><p>But he didn’t; or rather, he didn’t fully comprehend the cause behind it.</p><p>Now, everything was in pieces, and it was all because none of them had seen what was growing in April.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I can feel the darkness coming, And I'm afraid of myself, (Call my name and I'll come running, 'Cause I just need some help)

**Author's Note:**

> Now the funny thing is, most of my original ideas for the tmnt flashfic prompt, 'Regrets', were completely south of this.  
> Ha, muses work as they please I suppose. I wanted to write fun things, but lo and behold it came out angtsy instead.
> 
> Ho hum, suppose I should just accept my tendency to write sad things and go with it.
> 
> Irregardless, enjoy this very long one-shot. I checked it over like twenty times, and I'm 90% sure I caught any mistakes. Here's to hoping I'm right about that.
> 
> (write just a thousand words I said, that's all we need, I said. look how well that went.)

 

Donatello should have seen it, the steady change in one of the people he held closest to his heart.

But he didn’t; or rather, he didn’t fully comprehend the cause behind it.

Now, everything was in pieces, and it was all because none of them had seen what was growing in April.

 

It started with April staying away from the lair after their return to earth, and skipping group time to stay home. None of them bothered her about it though, because it seemed normal enough. She’d lost her dad, and then had to save the earth, for the umpteenth time. April was entitled to some down time, they all were.

But… when she started spending time with them again, something was different.

Donnie couldn’t put his finger on it, but April had an odd air to her now. She seemed more sinuous somehow, her gait and gestures flowing between each movement.

No one else seemed to notice it, so Donnie didn’t comment.

April was just adjusting to being on earth again, they all were. Whatever she was going through, she’d probably snap out of it soon.

It just escalated though; the way she talked shifted ever so slightly, along with the comments she made during conversations.

Mikey noticed too, and asked Donnie about it.

“It’s like, someone, I don’t know, sorta replaced her?” Mikey said, watching April talk with the rest of their family across the lair from Donnie’s lab doors. “She’s still April, but she’s like, _different_ , Dee. You see it too, right?”

Donnie looked at April, her bright laughing smile aimed at whatever Raph had said, and could tell there was a slant to it that had never been there before.

“Yeah, I see it. I don’t know what to do about it though,” Donnie said quietly. He crossed his arms and leaned against the opposite side of the door frame. “Maybe she’s… just growing up. Or something related to that. I’ve read online that teenage humans go through multiple shifts in personality as they get older; and that it’s completely normal for them to emerge from puberty as someone different.”

“I don’t want her to change though, I like April how she is,” Mikey said mournfully. He glanced at his brother, worry flickering in his eyes. “…what if she’s not someone who likes us anymore?”

Donnie heard April’s laughter again, could imagine exactly how her face used to light up when she did that, and saw the difference between her then and her now.

“She’s just going through a phase,” Donnie said, checking off subtle differences in April’s body language. “We’ve been busy the last few months, she’s just getting used to planet side life again.”

Mikey hummed, pursing his lips in a frown. Donnie could tell his little brother didn’t believe that, and to be honest, Donnie didn’t fully believe it himself.

 

 

 

The changes got increasingly obvious as April started using her powers more frequently.

Donnie had a small heart attack when he asked her to pass a tray of beakers over to his currently in-use lab table, and the tray floated down from over his head.

“Don’t freak out so much Donnie, I’m just practicing my telekinesis,” April said, rolling her eyes at his startled panic. “Honestly, how do you all expect me to get better at fighting if I don’t practice with every weapon I’ve got?”

Donnie didn’t have anything to say to that, because she was right.

April used her abilities for little things, normal motions that could be done by hand, and she got steadily better at fine control. April once was only able to move objects when she focused completely on the task, but soon she was whisking small objects through the air with single flicks of her hand.

Her range of empathic ability extended, to a level where she could pin-point exactly where everyone was positioned in the lair at any given time. Her ability to read someone’s emotions became mildly worrying, especially when she beat them all utterly at poker. Even Leo, whose poker face had been undefeatable up to that game, lost his entire hand to her.

Donnie only really started to worry though, when April began replying to questions still unasked, or ones she had no reason to have answers for.

“No Casey, I’m not free tomorrow, I have homework,” She said without looking up at the other human, who hadn’t had a chance to even open his mouth.

“But you-”

“Just because I’ve got a straight A average doesn’t mean I can take the night off, I’ve gotten side tracked enough the last year,” April said, shuffling the papers in front of her. She was helping Donnie sort his notes on their adventures/discoveries in space and bind them together properly, so they were readable to everyone, and not just himself.

That interaction hadn’t raised too many alarms, because Casey asked that question often enough it was routine. However, April answering a complex ninjutsu question, before Donnie and his brothers had even started remembering the answer, was shocking.

Splinter had been training her, yes, but knowledge of how to execute that particular aerial maneuver wasn’t anywhere close to the level she was supposed to be learning at.

“You just raise your leg thirty degrees upwards and complete the turn within the same moment, right Sensei? And then you land on your feet and not your back,” April said, not seeing the surprised expressions surrounding her.

“How did you know that, April?” Splinter asked, eyeing his singular female student.

April shrugged. “I’ve been around you guys enough, I’ve picked up things.”

Leo approached Donnie after the session, whispering that he didn’t remember them ever talking about that technique around April, not even once. Leo recalled their father only telling them about it back when their training was just beginning, a sort of look into what they could do when they were older.

“I’ll ask her about it, okay? Don’t worry, I’m sure one of us just mentioned it off-hand and don’t remember,” Donnie said, waving Leo’s pinched concern away.

When Donnie did get a chance to talk with April, they were interrupted before he could actually ask where she’d heard about the technique.

The interruption was Raph hanging up his t-phone and shouting that they had Purple Dragons activity within their territory, and Casey was already in the middle of it; their first fight in almost two weeks.

They dropped everything to make it to surface.

Casey already had four thugs down on the concrete, and was holding off the remaining twelve from the closed bank they’d been robbing. His repurposed space gear was saving him from too many injuries, but there were slices in his sleeves from knives and a dent in his chest plate.

Good thing the Shellraiser had a twin powered engine and the brothers followed none of the traffic laws about speeding.

After fighting colorful and exceedingly dangerous enemies in space, shutting down gang activity was almost easy.

Or it was, until a swarm of Foot clan robots descended from the roof tops, led by Rahzar and Fishface. A trap, meant to lure them out in an act of revenge for their Sensei’s defeat of Shredder.

Too bad for their enemies though, upgraded weapons cut and smashed the Foot bots like tissues; first thing Donnie had done after they’d gotten home, he’d made sure all of their space weaponry were ready for battle. Now, the tech savvy equipment annihilated the robots almost faster than they could react.

 April’s gun flashed brightly as she shot every attacker she could, and Donnie caught a smirk on her lips as she got a triple head shot with one blast.

He didn’t have time to think on that, (she’d never done that during a fight before what was _wrong_ with his friend?), because Rahzar’s long claws closed around her neck from behind.

Raph had been fighting the dog mutant, but where was he now? That didn’t matter though, what mattered was the lethal strike about to pierce April’s thin skin.

They’d been cocky, forgetting the most important aspect of combat: watch each other’s backs.

Donnie shouted, twisting his momentum and starting to run for her, but it felt like everything was in slow motion. Rahzar’s knife sharp claws were going to drag across April’s neck and then she’d be bleeding out and Donnie had to stop that, had to save her, she was going to die, she was going to _die-_

April dropped her gun, same instant Rahzar's hand wrapped fully around her neck, and reach for her chest. The moment her hands made contact, blinding light exploded around her. Donnie stumbled, shutting his eyes to block the flash.

When he opened them again, Rahzar was limp on the ground with April standing over him.

The battle around them resumed motion, and Donnie leapt over decapitated Foot bots to reach April.

“April! Are you hurt?” He asked desperately, searching for gaping wounds on her throat. There was only a short scratch though, not even bleeding.

April smiled, not looking at all like she'd almost died. “I'm fine Dee, he barely nicked me.”

Donnie wanted to ask more questions, but three robots jumped at them and he was forced to turn his attention to defending them. With Rahzar down, Fishface was the only one still leading the fight. The Brazilian mutant did his best, but they demolished him and his drones.

Triceratons made the former human seem like an imitation of a threat, his small size and primitive earth tech paling in comparison to who their main enemies had been for months.

Eventually, it was just Fishface alone and six remaining Foot bots.

Donnie stood in front of April, not entirely sure if that was even necessary anymore, as they surrounded their remaining opponents.

Fishface raised his hands, sneering at the brothers and their friends. “I see now, that this is our loss. If you would not mind, I'd like to take my, ah, colleague, and retreat.”

“For a lackey of the Shredder, you don't seem very determined to beat us,” Leo commented, keeping his swords ready.

“I am just paid to work for him really, this battle is no more than a blow to my ego; and I value my life more than my pride,” Fishface replied. He snapped his fingers, and his robots stood at attention. “So, may we leave now?”

Raph, who had a foot on Rahzar's head, rubbed at the slashes on his left shoulder the twice mutated dog man had inflicted to get away from him. “Dunno 'bout that, I'm still itchin' to beat someone's ass.”

“I have to agree,” April said, stepping around from Donnie's shielding. She walked to the front of the group, ignoring Leo's hissed _“Get back, he's still dangerous.”_ , and stood ten feet from Fishface. “You, and your friend, have caused us a lot of trouble before; why should we let you go, when you'll just come back?”

April raised one hand to her chest, gripping at the Aeon shard with that hand, and used the other to press two fingers to her temple. “I think that you need the same treatment that Rahzar got.”

Donnie quickly glanced back at Rahzar, calculated how long his revival time had been in the past versus that moment, and realized that for a mutant, Rahzar had been unconscious for too long. He looked back to April just in time for her to blind them all again, making spots dance across Donnie's sight; and just as the light cleared, Fishface dropped to the ground.

“Hold on, what did you do?!” Leo asked, grabbing April's shoulder to question her, just before the last Foot bots attacked them.

With no one to command them, their attacks were simple, and six robots were nothing compared to six veteran teens that’d been to the edge of the universe and back.

Silence fell after Casey bashed in the metal skull of the last droid, and then it was just their group standing above the bodies of robots. The Purple Dragon thugs had taken their leave earlier, while the fight was still raging.

“Well, this'll be fun for the bank to clean up tomorrow,” Raph quipped, kicking a stray bot head across the street. “What do we do with ugly and uglier then? Leave 'em for the Foot to pick up?”

“That would be the best solution...” Donnie muttered, crouching down to flick open one of Rahzar's eyelids. No pupil, but that was normal for the dog mutant; however, the multiple broken blood vessels in the sclera were not. Donnie stood back up, turning to face April. “April, what did you do to them? Rahzar's still unresponsive, and we've never seen him take this long to recover.”

April smiled, her expression tinged with smugness. “I neutralized them, so they won't be bothering us again. Ever.”

“You did what now?” Mikey piped up, Casey echoing his question. Donnie tightened his grip on his bo staff, and saw both Raph and Leo stiffen minutely.

“Basically, I reached into their heads and took their minds apart,” April explained blithely, walking over to Fishface's body. With her foot, she rolled him over, his tongue flopping pathetically over his sharp incisors. “They're alive, but when they wake up, they'll be too confused to remember who they are. I doubt the Shredder will put effort into rehabilitating two mutants who can't form more than a few sentences at a time,” She turned around, clasping her hands behind her back and grinning proudly. “Now they won't be able to try hurting us ever again.”

“April,” Donnie said softly, a chill traveling up his spine.

“I didn't make that call April,” Leo said in a low tone, casually putting only _one_ of his swords away. “You can't just do that to someone, even if they're an enemy.”

“Yeah, I mean that's pretty metal, but, uh,” Casey scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “Kinda overkill too?”

April's smile faltered, and she blinked away a fog Donnie hadn't noticed in her eyes. She glanced down at the mutant fish, and stepped away back towards the group. She looked over at Donnie, confusion swimming in her eyes. “What'd I do wrong? They're our enemies, didn't they deserve that?”

“I agree with April,” Raph said, sheathing his sais; he crossed his arms and flexing his shallow cuts. “These guys've been a pain in our shells for months, and that's two main fighters outta the game. Shred-head's gonna have a hard time replacin' 'em. Who cares what happens to them? They're not _our_ people.”

“The fact remains, I didn't give the order,” Leo said, navy blues pinned on April. “I can't have you making calls without consult, April; you could endanger us all with a split second decision like that.”

“Like you did with the scout ship?” April snapped, surprising them all. “Going against a whole flying empire in a scouting vessel wasn't exactly your best plan Leo, and you didn't even tell us about it. So don't go and lecture me, otherwise you’re a hypocrite.”

“Hey, calm down, April,” Donnie said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

She shrugged him off, taking another step towards Leo. “Just because you're the leader of your brothers, doesn't make you _my_ leader. You can't dictate my every move Leo,” She narrowed her eyes, squaring her shoulders. “Maybe you're upset that I'm finally fighting, and not hiding like some damsel in distress.”

“That's not what I meant-”

“I'm not some civilian anymore Leo, I can make my own calls and fight how I want,” April pulled out the pendant that hung around her neck, the pale stone flashing in the light of the street lamps. “My powers are an asset to the team, and I fully intend to use them; whether you like it or not.”

“Holy shit,” Casey whispered on the edge of Donnie's hearing, sounding like he was halfway between freaked out and excited by April’s rebellion. “What's gotten into April?”

“I don't know,” Mikey whispered back, and he sounded properly unnerved, unlike Casey.

April twitched, gripping her stone amplifier so tight her knuckles were white. She kept her eyes locked with Leo for a moment longer, and then whirled to stalk off. Donnie exchanged a look with his eldest brother, Leo had a tight and offended expression on his face, before jogging to catch up with April.

“Hey, April, wait up; don't you need a ride home? It's pretty late out,” Donnie asked, trying to give her a reason to stay and allow him chance to ask her what the heck that’d been.

April looked up at him, and for a moment Donnie felt like she was looking directly into his soul. He was completely unable to move, and then she blinked and the tenseness in Donnie's limbs loosened again. April smiled, and shook her head. “No thanks Donnie, I can make it home myself. I don't want to be around Leo right now anyways.”

“You sure?”

April grinned, and held up her pendant again. “With this, plus my kunoichi training? Please, Donnie, no one around here can even touch me anymore.”

Donnie was left standing on the corner of the sidewalk, while April walked confidently into the night. He felt a deeply unsettled feeling bloom in his gut, watching his best friend melt into the streets of New York.

Something was different with April, and he had a sinking suspicion of what it was.

 

 

 

Like April predicted, Fishface and Rahzar didn't show their faces again.

She and Leo were at odds for days, side eyeing each other when they were in the same room. Neither of them budged on the subject of who was right.

Donnie tried to talk to April about it, but she'd tell him to drop the subject every time he brought it up. She wouldn’t hear anything about it, and if he pushed her to talk, it resulted in April walking off in the middle of their conversation.

Donnie caught April staring into space multiple times, rolling the Aeon shard between her finger tips with an intense gleam in her eyes; the white stone glinting in the light as she played with it.

Donnie didn't like how focused she was on the gift from the Aeon's, it tugged at his paranoia.

With the fight between her and Leo ongoing, the rest of Donnie's family began noticing how different April was. She still hung around them, and they still talked and did normal stuff with her; but now there was a feeling of tension in the air. A pocket of space surrounding April that no one wanted to breach.

April wouldn't back down about what she'd done, and Leo wouldn't forgive her for making such a dangerous choice.

Donnie did his best to keep his family's ties from straining too badly under the weight of the argument, but there was only so much he could do.

 

 

 

April applied the same technique on the next Shredder goons who attacked them, again without permission, and then Bebop and Rocksteady were down for good too.

Leo admitted that yes, it was effective with taking out enemies, but she'd done it without his say; _again_. And even if she didn't count him as _her_ leader, she should respect the fact that he was still in charge of their missions.

April told him, “I'm just doing what you five haven't managed with physical weapons, and it’s working. You can't honestly tell me you _don't_ want these guys out of our lives. We've got better things to do than deal with their non-sense ever night. And isn't the end game to do the same to Shredder? I'm just making progress that you and your ninja training haven't accomplished in over a year.”

Leo confided in the rest of the team, when April had gone home, that it was time for them to bring master Splinter in on the matter. April was becoming a loose cannon, and Leo was tired of her disrespecting his orders.

Donnie was forced to agree, because while he’d support April ten out of ten times on any given matter, she was damaging the team dynamic of their group. In a fight, they couldn’t afford to have so much disruption amongst each other; cooperation in a fight was the difference between getting home, and not.

The next evening, they all gathered in the dojo, master Splinter in front of them and stroking his beard.

“April, I have grown worried about you; you're recent actions are very unlike yourself,” Master Splinter said to her, April kneeling along with Donnie and his brothers; Casey was taking the night off to spend time with his family. Tonight was ninjas only. “What has brought such brutality out of you?”

“I got tired of being weak, Sensei, and of letting my family get hurt,” April said, confidence not wavering under Splinter's gaze. “I did exactly what I should have done; which was defend my team, and eliminate the enemy.”

“Both good things yes, but with such drastic measure? April, you are a young girl still; those actions do not suit your age,” Splinter said gravely. “You have essentially killed four men; that is not something you should have decided to enact.”

“Aren't ninjas supposed to do that though? Protect their clan whatever the cost?” April said stubbornly.

“That is _not_ something I ever taught you!” Splinter said, raising his voice and frowning. “We, this family, have a code of _mercy_. What you have been doing is what the _Shredder_ would have done, and he is not someone you should ever imitate. Do not presume with just a year of training that you understand what the way of ninjutsu is meant to be.”

“I understand just fine,” April said, frowning right back at Splinter. “What I don't understand, is why you never did it yourself, Sensei. Shredder has been attacking us relentlessly for months, and we haven't once taken the fight to him. We have the ability to; _you_ have the ability to, why can't we just take him down for good already?”

“Because a war is not won with a single battle.”

“It can be if it's the last one,” April tugged out her Aeon pendant, showing it to Splinter. “I can do what I've done to Shredder's lackeys to him, and he won't even have to die. No more death, not for either side. No one else has to get hurt, if we just take out the source. Don't you want revenge?”

Donnie felt his stomach drop out at that sentence coming from April's mouth.

He felt more than unsettled, seeing the absolution in April's expression. She really meant it. She really meant that they should take out the Shredder once and for all.

His feelings of unease worsened, because he could see his father's consideration of the idea.

Donnie had never really acknowledged how much his father wanted revenge, but now he couldn't _not_ acknowledge it.

Splinter had always taught them that holding grudges close to their hearts would consume them; but hadn’t his father done just that? Kept the memory of Oroku Saki’s betrayal alive in his mind for years?

Donnie shifted his position uncomfortably; he didn’t like where this was going.

“I want this to be over, master Splinter,” April said, letting her necklace drop back to her chest. “I don't want to have to check over my shoulder every time I go out, I don't want to have to worry if there'll be ninjas attacking my apartment at night, and I don't want to worry that my family will finally lose more than just a battle!”

April's words hung in the air, and Donnie felt his brothers twitch beside him. They were all considering it now. An end to the war, to fighting for their lives against their oldest enemy, the return of their peaceful lives from before their fifteenth birthday…

Why did that seem like such an appealing idea suddenly? Donnie was always cautious with picking his fights, but the idea of taking the fight to Shredder sounded like the best option. He was tired of fighting robotic ninjas every time he went for a run with his brothers; tired of almost dying each time Shredder concocted a new way to attack his family.

An end to that sounded too good to resist.

“...I do want that,” Splinter said slowly, his left hand's claws tapping his knee as he thought. “Oroku Saki has taken everything from me once before, I won't see him do it again.”

“Then let's do it, let's get rid of the Foot clan,” April encouraged, smiling confidently at her Sensei. “We can do it, just get me inside their base and I'll have him. Then this can be put to rest, and we'll be safe.”

In the back of his mind, Donnie felt like this was a bad idea, and wondered why he'd ever consider it.

But April's plan sounded so convincing, and everyone else was nodding along already; so he'd have to throw in with the rest of his family.

April always had good ideas anyways, she was smart about everything she did and it was one of the reasons he loved her so much. If she thought this would work, then why wouldn't he trust her on it?

They made plans to mount the attack that very night.

The Shredder wouldn't see it coming.

 

 

 

Donnie hadn't spent all their time in space just looking for the black hole generator pieces; he'd also spent it learning how to make better weapons.

In the weeks since they'd come home, he'd been inventing as many as he could with earth tech.

The lair of the Foot wasn't prepared for a jury-rigged space laser to blast away its roof, or for the entire Hamato clan to descend on them from above; upgraded weapons keened and their Sensei leading the charge.

Rappelling down from the hole in the ceiling, they landed directly on the stone walkway of Shredder's mock throne room. There were alarms blaring, and guards pouring into the room, but Mikey's new and improved explosives took out a good chunk of their forces.

With smoke still filling the air, they dove into the battle.

Donnie fought like he always did, letting his body move through muscle memory and adapt to whatever was thrown his way; his mind free to create plans on the fly, and execute them as he saw fit.

The fight was a flurry of blades and blunt weapons, Donnie only keeping track of his family because of their bright coloring in comparison to the black of the Foot ninja.

Some of the ninjas were actual humans mixed in with the robots, and with his electrified staff, Donnie filled the air around him with the scent of burnt flesh. Electricity arcs spread through the humans attacking him, and they dropped to the ground; not moving again.

He didn't stop though, not really noticing the difference from the robots, and continued to reap life after life. His brothers doing the same, as master Splinter and April confronted Shredder on the stairs of his throne.

Vaguely, Donnie wondered how things had come to this; the swaths of fallen bodies piling up on the floor, oil and blood mixing together. This wasn't how they did things, why were they here?

Another set of small explosions peppered the other side of the room, Mikey's gleeful _“Booyakasha!”_ following. Donnie caught a flash of Leo using his glowing swords to bisect robots one after another, back to back with Mikey as their youngest brother alternated using his tonfa's and mini-bombs.

Donnie missed an oncoming strike in his moment of surveying; a Foot bot behind him armed with a metal club caught the back of Donnie’s skull. He went down to his knees, only saved by Raph's intervention via stabbing the robot in its eyes.

Donnie stumbled back to his feet, and activated the prototype 15 foot ranged EMP bomb strapped to his shell; every robot nearby shorting out and falling dead to the marble floor.

He felt like taking a moment to pass out, just for a few minutes.

Nothing like a mild concussion to snap you out of mind control though.

“Stop, stop it guys!” Donnie gasped, regaining full control of himself. They shouldn't be here, this was insane, what the _hell_ had April done to them- “There's no way we can win this, we have to retreat!”

None of his brothers answered him though, continuing to fight despite accumulating wounds. Donnie was distracted again; having to focus on removing the heads of attacking robots, like Raph was doing not far from him. Donnie's footing skidded, red and black was soaking his leg wrappings, and he caught sight of a human ninja employed by Shredder, the source of the closest red puddle.

Donnie recalled with growing hysteria, that the adult man was missing a chunk of his skull because Donnie had crushed it with his staff.

“Oh my god,” He choked, seeing the insanity of the battle they started. They were going to die, every one of them. The numbers didn’t add up in any way that guaranteed their survival; this was a suicide mission.

The screams of the Shredder halted the fighting though, robotic and live ninjas alike pausing to look to the back of the long hallway.

Donnie took that moment of stillness, and broke through the frozen ranks of droids, making his way to where he'd seen his father and April last.

They were both there, standing relatively unharmed, and Oroku Saki lying crumpled at the bottom of the stairs. His helmet was gone, exposing his scars, and blood leaked from his mouth and nose.

Splinter stood tall and grim, eyes dark and triumphant. He had his revenge, finally, after years of waiting.

Donnie's father had no weapon in hand, only split knuckles slowly dripping blood through his bandaged hands.

April didn't either, but she had blood speckled across her cheeks.

She was smiling.

Why was she smiling?

Donnie wanted to be sick.

“April, what did you do to us?” He asked in a hushed voice, breaking the silence in the room.

April's wide smile made his knees feel weak and his heart stutter; but not the same way it had since he'd met her.

“We beat the Shredder, now he'll never attack any of us again,” April said, still smiling, and she held up her Aeon shard. “And it's all thanks to this.”

Donnie stood alone, covered in gore and injuries, as his family collected around April and congratulated each other.

He could hear the remaining human followers of the Shredder running for their lives, disappearing into the walls of their base and probably back into the criminal underworld of New York. Only the frozen Foot bots remained, lifeless without someone to command them.

The Foot clan was finished, no leader or heir apparent to take control.

They’d finally won, after years of fighting, but at what cost?

Donnie could barely follow everyone up the ropes again, forcing his numb limbs to respond.

He didn't speak once the whole way home, his family talking cheerfully amongst themselves like nothing was different, like they hadn't just murdered tens of people to get to one man, all on the command of a teenage girl.

Donnie thought to himself, that judging from his sluggish reactions and foggy brain, he was probably in shock or under the control of April's influence again. Maybe both.

He didn't manage to snap out of his stupor until April had departed the group for her own home, and they'd stepped back into the lair.

The first person to come back to themselves was Mikey, who dropped his soiled tonfa’s and promptly threw up.

Leo and Raph followed in suit, throwing their bloodied weapons away and yelling in confusion.

Splinter shuddered, and fell to his knees.

Ah, so April did still have a range limit. That was one good thing about this. That, and Casey hadn’t gotten involved. Lucky for him, he didn't have to add murder to his list of broken laws.

Donnie chose that moment to collapse on himself; letting the throb of his head black out his vision.

 

 

 

He came to, with his family clustered nearby and having an angry sounding conversation.

“-can't believe she'd do that!” Donnie caught the end of Raph saying. Donnie turned his head to the side, seeing his livid older brother pacing with clenched fists. “She fucking mind controlled us into fighting the entire Foot clan! She made us _kill_ people!”

“Sensei, what do we do?” Leo asked somewhere beyond Donnie's sight range. “We can't just let her get away with this. She violated our minds, and our trust.”

Donnie's vision cleared further, and he saw Mikey sitting off to the side of the dojo, knees drawn to his plastron and head down. Donnie was by the opposite wall, and their Sensei sat in the middle of the room. Leo entered the scene, apparently pacing like Raph, but with a longer path.

“S'going on?” Donnie mumbled, trying to sit up from the futon he lay on.

“My son, do not move,” Splinter warned as he came over, pushing Donnie gently back down. “You were hit very hard on your head, and have been unconscious for a few hours. Let me check your pupils before you try walking about again.”

“Where's April?” Donnie asked, feeling woozy from the attempts to move. “She... she did somethin' to us.”

“She took over our minds Donnie,” Leo said, a cold, steely edge to his voice. “She _used_ us to achieve her goals.”

“Like god damn puppets,” Raph spat angrily.

Donnie pulled a hand from under his blanket, rubbing his eyes as his father finished checking them. “I know, I snapped out of it at the very end of the fight.”

“How could she do that?” Mikey asked, lifting his head and looking at Donnie with bloodshot eyes. “She-she just took over us, like we weren't even family! And then- and then she made us hurt all those people-!”

Mikey broke off, burying his head in his hands again. Raph's fists were shaking, and Leo's expression was a mask of cool anger.

Donnie looked up at their father, who seemed not like their tall and strong Sensei, but like an old rat, who'd just lost something dear to him.

The Shredder might have been what tore apart Splinter's first family, but Oroku Saki had been a part of that family once. They'd been brothers together.

Now the Shredder was as good as dead, and Donnie's best friend had gone insane.

“Let me up, Sensei, I have to call April,” Donnie said, starting to sit up again.

Raph turned on Donnie, glaring with hate in his eyes. “Why. The _hell_. Would you want to call her right now?”

“I want answers,” Donnie replied, kicking the blanket off his legs. “You should call Casey while I do that, he needs to know not to get anywhere near April right now. She's not in her right mind.”

“Damn right she's not,” Raph growled.

“No, you don't understand, it’s the shard, it's making her go crazy,” Donnie wobbled a bit on his knees, but his father's hands steadied him. “It’s just like with the Aeon's, it's corrupted her like the generator piece did with them.”

“Fuck,” Raph said under his breath, digging out his t-phone. “I can't believe we forgot about that. _Fuck_.”

“Language Raphael,” Splinter reminded half-heartedly. He helped Donnie to his feet, keeping a hand on his son's shoulder until Donnie was standing fully upright. “And I think that a further explanation about what an 'Aeon' is would be a good idea.”

Donnie went to his pile of belongings by the wall, everything he'd been wearing when they came home taken off him to treat his wounds and clean the filth away, while Leo started explaining that particular portion of their space adventure.

They'd left it out originally on Raph's request; his remaining issues with what the planet had done to him made it too uncomfortable for Raph to hear it repeated to their father. This was an emergency though, and he'd have to let those issues go for the time being.

Donnie's t-phone was right where he left it, strapped into its pouch snug and tight. He pulled it out, and turned its screen on.

Two messages, both from April. Just quick things, asking if they’d gotten home safe, and that she hoped they slept well.

“I'm calling her now,” Donnie said, flicking the screen to contacts. His family went silent behind him, as Donnie held the phone to his ear duct.

 _“Hello? Donnie?”_ April answered. She sounded sleepy. How could she be sleeping after what she'd done? _“It’s way too late for this, why're you calling?”_

“I'm calling, because you just finished _mind controlling_ my entire family into almost committing suicide,” Donnie hissed, angry that his friend didn't seem even remotely apologetic. “What hell did you do April, we trusted you, _I_ trusted you, and you did _that_ to us?”

_“Shredder's gone now, so what's the problem with that? We all wanted him dead right?”_

“Not like that, April. That was too risky, we all could have died!”

_“But we didn't, and now we've only got the Kraang left to worry about.”_

April honestly didn't see anything wrong with what she'd done.

How had Donnie not seen this happening to his friend?

“My son, tell her we need to meet,” Splinter said, making Donnie turn his head and look. Splinter was standing, arms lax at his sides, but his stance speaking of coiled power. “Tell her that tomorrow evening, I'd like to have a conversation with her here. This needs to be addressed.”

“Sensei wants you to come here, tomorrow night,” Donnie said, relaying his father's instructions. “We need to have a talk.”

_“Fine, fine, but first let me get some sleep. I still have school tomorrow. I'll talk later Donnie, sleep well.”_

And then she hung up, ending the conversation like everything that happened tonight hadn't and it was just a normal phone call.

Donnie dropped his phone and scrubbed a hand across his face, feeling the back of his head throb. “She'll be here.”

“What're you gonna do, dad?” Mikey asked quietly, coming out of his fetal position. He looked as shaken as Donnie felt. “What's gonna happen now?”

“Now, I must confront her,” Splinter said, his deep voice laced with regret. “She has betrayed us, and become too dangerous to be left alone. We will need to stop her, before she attempts to do worse. If she can be saved by removing that pendant, then we will. But if she cannot be...”

Splinter’s words hung in the air, and Donnie didn't need to be a genius to fill in the rest.

 

 

 

It wasn’t that they hadn’t had to take a life before; fighting a war meant casualties.

But on this scale, the cold intent of their attacks, this was different.

They’d never taken so many lives in one go; unnecessary death went against their family’s code of conduct.

Had Donnie, or any of his brothers, really been in control of their actions, the final death toll would have been much smaller.

Of course, Donnie could only count vaguely how many humans he’d killed; the fight and earlier parts of the evening were blurry up to his concussion. He had no way of actually confirming just how many men and women he’d killed.

A part of him didn’t want to know, and didn’t want his brothers to know either.

The knowledge that they _had_ killed, however unclear those numbers were, was enough of a burden already.

Watching Mikey retreat into himself after their family meeting was one of the worst things Donnie had ever seen; because even when things looked bleak, Mikey still did his best to keep their morals up. All Mikey could muster though, was a hollow gaze and quiet voice. Donnie had never seen Mikey disassociate like that before, and it unsettled him even more than how their elder brothers were reacting.

Raph and Leo were condensed balls of anger, pacing relentlessly and unable to sit still. Sometimes they were vocal about their frustrations, but those exclamations would cut off midway and it would be back to physical displays of stress. The echo of Leo’s swords slicing the air, and Raph’s fists meeting the punching bag, sounded through the grim air of their home.

Leo was so angry; Donnie could almost taste it when his brother was nearby. Their fearless leader was struggling to keep his cool under the pressure of their situation. April had been a part of his team; and that probably meant, in Leo’s opinion, that she’d gotten out of control on _his_ watch. The actions of the people he led were the actions of himself, and Leo was most likely mad at himself for not putting this to a stop when April had first ignored his orders.

Raph though, he might’ve been the hot head of them, but his anger stemmed from hurt and not rage for once; because April had betrayed them, someone he’d trusted. Raph gave his trust out only to people he deemed worthy, and now he’d had it thrown back in his face. Similarly to Donnie and Leo, he was without a doubt beating himself up for not catching the betrayal before it happened; because it was his job to take out threats before they became dangerous to the family.

So while Mikey steadily became a shadow of himself, Leo and Raph grew brighter with badly channeled energy.

Donnie wanted to do both of those things. Turn all of his turmoil outwards and burn it up, but at the same time he wanted to curl up and pretend that this had never happened.

He couldn’t do either though; he had to prepare the lair for April’s visit.

Their Sensei’s plan was fairly simple. The four of them would be outside of what Donnie estimated was April’s range limit and Splinter would stay behind to confront her. If he couldn’t talk her down and get the shard from her, Donnie would activate a trap system from a wireless interface.

After the mind worm incident, and subsequent breach in the lair, they as a family discussed methods of dealing with mind controlled allies. Donnie in the end had devised a non-lethal wire trap that could be activated only with a special passcode, one that he changed bi-weekly.

Donnie was the one to hold the codes, alternating with his brothers of who was the secondary password holder. It wasn’t full proof, but it would be better than having to grapple with an ally to subdue them. The wire guns would pop out of four different locations in the main lair area, and could be aimed with a camera attached to each of their bases. Once locked onto a target, they would shoot weighted lengths of wire that would bind the mind controlled individual to the stone floor; their arrow heads imbedding themselves into the ground to prevent movement until someone could knock out the individual.

Donnie would never have imagined in a million years it’d be April he had to prep them for.

But with April’s abilities, it’d be easy for her to get into Splinter’s mind and make him free her; nullifying the use of the wire traps.

Good thing Donnie had a plan for that too.

Dr. Rockwell might have become an ally, and a member of the mighty Mutanimals, but his psychic abilities still posed a potential threat. Whether it came from him or someone who’d copied his research.

Donnie was just paranoid enough to start making plans for a mental shield, because even if he’d learned to empty his mind as a defense against mental attacks during that adventure, he still didn’t want to take chances with someone in his head.

The invention had been put on the backburner for months, too many crisis’s demanding immediate attention; but now with a full day and no desire to sleep, Donnie pulled out those blue prints and got to work.

It would be a rough and hurried job, but it would mask Splinter’s thoughts enough April wouldn’t immediately know their plan, and hopefully keep her out of his head period. With the last of their space suit parts, mixed with Kraang tech Donnie still had in storage, he hoped that he could cobble something together that wouldn’t critically fail them.

If their father went back under April’s influence, there wasn’t much chance they’d be able to stop her; it really came down to how much power April could exercise on someone’s mind.

From the disposed of piles of bloody wrapping and newly cleaned weapons, it looked like a lot.

The day moved agonizingly slow, the hours counting down to when April was due to arrive. Casey had been warned, and was staying away from April and the lair until the all clear was given; it had taken Sensei’s firm forbiddance of Casey intervening, but the teen had agreed begrudgingly he wouldn’t try anything. The situation was too delicate to involve Casey’s ham-handed methods for dealing with trouble.

Anxious tension permeated the air of their home, and the eerie stillness or obsessive movements of its inhabitants didn't do anything to lift it.

No one slept until the early afternoon, everyone other than Donnie preparing for the confrontation in the areas they'd been assigned. Weapons care and checking the oil levels of the wire guns went to Raph and Mikey, while Splinter and Leo worked through meditative exercises to protect their minds. If Sensei was taken under April's control again, Leo needed to at least have a shot at fighting her.

Donnie on principal didn’t put faith in mysticality, but just this once he was going put as much as he could into it; just in case worst came to worst.

Their father forced them to take a power nap after everything had been prepared, but Donnie refused to take more than twenty minutes. Exhaustion be damned, he had to finish his project.

Donnie completed the pair of inch thick ear plugs by six in the evening, two hours to spare. They would hook around his father's rodent ears and create a frequency between each other that in theory would keep April out of his mind. And with the quick paint job of pink, they wouldn't be _too_ obvious.

They actually stuck out pretty badly, but Donnie hadn't had time for anything else. He'd downsized the internal components best he could, to keep them from being clunky, but there was only so much he could do with salvaged parts and such a small window of time.

Working with almost no breaks to finish the ear plugs kept Donnie from thinking about April the entire day, and he was grateful for that. It had shaken him to his core to see his friend, a person he dearly loved, become the weapon she'd been made to be.

When, not if, they got their hands on that shard, Donnie was going to grind it into dust himself.

Donnie refused to let this plan fail, not with April's sanity and life on the line.

When the time came, an hour before April's arrival, Donnie and his brothers assembled together and left the lair. Their father stood alone in their home, his staff in hand and Donnie's inventions placed in his ears.

Donnie's shell was strapped with a mobile receiver so he could view where his guns were aiming, and as soon as they were out of April's range, he set it down and connected it with his computer. All four turrets were in full working order, freshly oiled and completely out of sight from April. Their green lights beamed brightly on Donnie's screen, and he settled into a tense lotus with the computer balanced on his knees.

His brothers, with their space age weapons glowing faintly, circled Donnie's position in the dark tunnel. Currently, Donnie was the least mobile and it was up to them to guard him if something attacked. Unlikely, what with the Foot clan in a state of dissolution and the Kraang withdrawn to their own dimension, but a comfort nonetheless; it gave them something to do until April's phone showed her entrance into the lair.

Donnie was never gladder that he could track her through it; it made the waiting slightly less painful.

Finally, after counting the minutes down, April arrived in the lair five minutes to eight. Donnie, through the video feed, could see she walked with the fluid grace she'd been developing since they came back to earth, and had her hair free of her usual pony tail.

It scared him how much she looked like a completely different person.

Donnie keyed up the targeting system in his guns, and held the mouse over the activation button.

There was no audio, so Donnie had to rely on what body language he could catch. So far, the conversation looked calm. April wasn't displaying signs of aggression, and Splinter hadn't moved from his stance.

It took a turn though, when Splinter pointed a single claw at April; her hand going to clench around the shard hanging in plain sight on her breast bone. She responded with a scowl, and whatever it was she replied with, it was enough to make Splinter twitch his tail's tip three times.

That was the signal; put April out of commission so Splinter could take the shard by force.

Donnie hesitated for a split second, because insane or not that was still April. She was still the girl Donnie had signed his heart over to, the same girl he would have given almost anything for.

This is for her own good, was what he thought as he clicked the activation codes.

The response was instantaneous, all four turrets dropping from the ceiling and pelting off their shots. April was yanked harshly to the ground by four thick lengths of wires that criss-crossed her prone form. She'd have bruises tomorrow, but it'd be worth it.

“She's pinned,” Donnie reported tonelessly to Leo beside him. “Stand by for further instructions.”

Leo jerked a nod, flicking a hand signal to Raph and Mikey to get ready in case their Sensei needed back up.

On screen, April thrashed under her constraints, her face twisted in fury as she tried to get free.

Donnie felt nauseous watching the scene play out; April barely looked anything like herself anymore.

Splinter approached her quickly, arm darting out to grab the shard from April neck. But the moment Splinter was near enough to kneel, one of the wires holding April's right side down snapped in half and her arm shot out to seize Splinter's outstretched hand.

Telekinesis, how had they forgotten- but she'd never done something on that level before, how were they supposed to combat _that_ -

Donnie's father jolted as though April's touch electrocuted him, and momentarily slumped to the floor. He recovered nearly an instant after, but Donnie could see something left behind on the floor.

One of the ear pieces, Splinter was vulnerable.

April was in his head again.

“Move, go, _GO!”_ Donnie shouted, jarring his brothers into action. “April broke out, she's got Splinter!”

Raph cussed once, and then they were gone. Donnie dumped his computer to the concrete bottom of the tunnel, exchanging it for his metal bo staff, and followed his brothers.

Donnie wasn't the fastest of them, not by a long shot that was one of Mikey's hidden talents, so his brothers' head start by seconds left him slightly behind. Panic and dread made him fly forwards though, the tunnels flashing by as he raced to avert as much disaster as he could.

Leo had orders to follow if Splinter was taken out; use any means necessary to stop April. That meant lethal force, since April was not only a danger to them, but to ordinary citizens of New York. With her powers, she'd destroyed one of the strongest criminal empires in a single night; April could do anything she wanted now.

His brothers didn't want to hurt her, April was family she was _theirs,_ but Donnie had seen the resolution in Leo's eyes. This ended here, one way or another.

Donnie didn't want to watch his brothers kill the person he loved.

Donnie finally got the lair, skidding to a stop with his metallic bo at the ready and it's electrified end pointed at whoever might attack him, and he found-

His brothers, scattered across the cavernous room, fighting thin air.

Splinter was sitting utterly still where April had been, kneeling in front of the snapped wires and staring into space. His ears didn't even twitch as Leo fired off three blasts with his gun; the beams of light exploding on contact with the television.

Donnie checked all three of his brothers, gazes unfocused and pupils oddly exposed without their third eyelids down. They were slashing and swinging at nothing, yelling insults and angry war cries.

April was nowhere in sight.

Donnie was too late; she'd gotten inside of their heads like it was nothing and prevented them from even getting close to catching her. All four mutants were trapped inside whatever visions April had poisoned their minds with.

Donnie noticed, also too late, that the doors to his lab were wide open.

He dodged across the room, narrowly avoiding Leo’s swords and an errant swing from Mikey’s tonfa, and burst into his laboratory.

April stood in front of an open portal, pink and psychedelic; projected from the Kraang orb that Donnie had thought he'd deactivated beyond use.

“April, April wait!” Donnie shouted, dashing to grab her away from the portal into a dimension where she'd die from just _breathing_. “Don't do this!”

April didn't glance back at him, like Donnie wasn’t there at all, and she vanished into the portal's opening. Donnie didn't spare a moment to even curse, only switching direction to grab his oxygen supplier from their first trip into dimension-X off its hook on the wall.

He didn't have even seconds, because the time dilation between their worlds was so severe that the mere minute they'd taken to go after Mikey had been weeks, if not _months_.

Donnie roughly shoved the tube into his mouth and leapt through the portal, feet landing on alien ground. He panted as he surveyed the area, looking for April's body.

He instead saw-

-shattered islands of rock-

-floating corpses of giant worms-

-burning Kraang ships with blackened hulls-

-and what looked like a huge demolished base of the Kraang. The bodies of fallen Kraang soldiers spread across the entire field leading to the once tall structures, the pink brain aliens rotting inside. Craters littered the earth, enormous things lying inside them that might have once been war machines.

The remaining airborne ships of the Kraang circled docilely around the wreckage, keeping in a tight repeating cycle.

The whole area was silent of life, nothing beyond the sound of still burning slag.

Something small hovered above the former base, right in the center of the circling patterns of the ships.

Donnie didn't need to look closer to know, that the thing commanding the fleet of ships, was April.

 _“Hello, Donnie,”_ April said inside his mind. She descended from the fuchsia sky, hair haloing her as she flew. _“I knew you'd come.”_

As she got closer, Donnie's grip on his staff loosened as he took in April's physical changes.

Her eyes were blankly glowing, light filling the sclera. That wasn't what caught his attention though. No, the six undulating tentacles sprouted from her skull drew his focus. Their tips lit up as they streamed through the air, echoing the light coming from her eyes and the shard. The final change was the frilled spines along April's hair part, starting tall at the front and trailing smaller to the back.

 _“I killed them, Kraang Prime,”_ April said, still speaking inside Donnie's head. _“The first Kraang is dead, and now_ I'm _the queen. They'll never invade another dimension, and I’m going to use these ships to destroy every other outpost. Their reign of terror is over.”_

Donnie couldn't find words to describe his horror.

April smiled serenely down at him, her hair flying around her face like she was underwater. She could hear every thought he made, and she knew that Donnie knew.

There was no stopping her, April had won.

 _“I'm glad you understand that, Donnie,”_ April cooed, tracing a hand along Donnie's cheek. _“And I’m even more glad that I won't have to control you like I do your family. Your affections for me run too deep for any need of that. You won't raise a hand against me, not like your brothers.”_

Donnie couldn't refute her, because she was right. Even with what had happened, he would never be able to actually injure April.

She floated back away, throwing her arms out and smiling blissfully.

 _“Now, no one can ever hurt us again. I’ll protect us all, Donnie, so we don't have to be afraid anymore,”_ April said, the mental projection of her voice filled with warm comfort despite the message. She giggled lightly, twirling higher into the sky. _“I'm so glad. No more fighting, no more war, and no more pain! We're finally safe!”_

Donnie couldn't force any sound from his throat, frozen as he listened to April laugh.

They should have seen this, should have stopped it before it came this far.

But they hadn't, _he_ hadn't, and now April had all the power in the world.

Donnie's knees gave out underneath him, and he knelt heavily; his staff clattering against the rocks uselessly.

The end of the world floated high above him, practically singing her triumph.

 

 

 

Donnie watched numbly as April commanded an entire fleet of war ships to descend on New York.

 _“There’re still hideouts here that the Kraang control; we have to remove them,”_ April explained, standing beside Donnie on the roof she’d set them up on. It was the roof of her apartment complex, tall enough that they would easily see Kraang fleet do its work.

After she’d finished collecting the remaining reaches of Kraang in Dimension-X, April had opened portals between there and earth. What was left of the Kraang armada was more than enough to destroy their footholds in New York.

Behind Donnie and April, his family, _their family_ , stood placidly at attention. He didn’t want to turn around and see again the life extinguished from their eyes, like the glass marbles of dolls.

 _“They’re fine Donnie, I’m just making sure they don’t interfere while we finish up here,”_ April said soothingly, while she waved a hand and three more ships came through a portal. _“If I let them go, they’ll just try to get in the way. And I don’t want to hurt you guys, just keep you safe.”_

“This isn’t keeping us safe April, this is taking away our free will,” Donnie replied in a lifeless tone. He flicked his eyes over to April, who wasn’t even looking at him while she ‘talked’. “Don’t you see? You’re just doing what the Kraang wanted you to do.”

 ** _“No I’m not!”_ ** April snapped, layering her actual speaking voice with her mental one. She finally turned to actually look at Donnie, her power crackling over his scales as she spoke. “They’re not the ones in control, _I am._ This is my choice, and it’s nothing like what they were doing! I’m stopping the cycle of violence, so we can finally be free!”

“ _How_ is this free?!” Donnie demanded, sweeping an arm at his family. “You’re controlling every move they make, every thought they _think_.”

“For their own good!” April said, pink tentacles thrashing angrily. Donnie stepped away from her as April’s glow brightened. “You’d all just keep running into danger until one of you died! I’m making sure that never happens!”

“By turning them into slaves!” Donnie shouted. “By taking away everything makes our family _themselves_!”

“I’m protecting us!”

“No, you’re _damning_ us. What do you think the world is gonna do with _another_ alien invasion happening?” Donnie clenched his fists, hearing the wave of screams in the distance get louder with each ship that entered the sky. “They’ll never stop searching for who was behind it. We’ll never have another moment of peace because of this.”

“That’s not a problem though, because **_I can solve that,”_** April said as she placed her fingers to her temples. There was a tsunami of energy, one Donnie could feel passing right through him, and silence started to fall on the city.

Screams died off, the sounds of cars moving stopped completely, and then nothing but the Kraang fleet was making noise.

New York, the city that never sleeps, was at a standstill.

“What did you do?” Donnie whispered, waiting for something, _anything_ , to break the silence. But the sounds of life did not return to New York, and all he could hear was the fearful thrum of his heart.

 _“There. Now no one will be able to interfere,”_ April said, dropping her hands and clasping them in front of her body.

Donnie’s widened, because he’d underestimated how powerful April had become. She’d taken every single human in New York under her control in single heartbeat.

How long until she did that to rest of the world?

 _“Probably very soon,”_ April answered him. Her mouth was curved into a coy smile, like this was _funny_ for some reason. _“Not so completely of course, I couldn’t control every person in the world; even I’m not that powerful. But I could have enough of a hold that they’d never try to fight us or each other ever again. Another month Donnie, and world peace can be achieved. We won’t have to worry about ever being in danger again.”_

A hysterical laugh escaped Donnie as he clutched the sides of his head, stumbling back from April. “That’s insane, everything about this is _insane,_ April!”

 _“To you, maybe,”_ April reached out, pulling Donnie’s hands back down to his sides. She looked up at him, eyes bright with power and madness, and Donnie’s heart broke. “But I’ve never felt saner in my life.”

“This is wrong, April,” Donnie said miserably, wetness gathering in his eyes.

“But it’s the right thing to do,” April insisted gently. She reached up and brushed away the small tear on the edge of Donnie’s eye. “You, your brothers, Sensei, and every other mutant in the world; this way no one will try to take you away. If I’m in control, then there’ll never be a government or facility that’ll capture and experiment on you. You can all finally be a part of society without discrimination! To every human on the planet, you’ll look normal to them.”

April traced her fingers along Donnie’s scaled cheek, warmth seeping into them. “You don’t have to hide anymore, you’re all free.”

Donnie leaned into her palm, tears still trailing down and soaking his mask. “No we’re not April, not like this.”

“You’ll see it my way one day Donnie, just give it time.”

Donnie closed his eyes, enjoying her touch for a moment longer. “You know how I feel about you, so tell me just once; do you feel the same way? Give me the truth of that at least.”

“Oh Donnie,” April said sadly, rubbing her thumb across a tear track. “I’m sorry; I really do love you, just not that way. And it’s unlikely I ever will. It just wouldn’t work out, you see; what we want is too… different. I hope you understand that.”

Donnie breathed a deep sigh as she took her hand away from his cheek. He’d suspected that, known it in the back of his mind, but he’d held a small hope that he was wrong. But she was never going to love him, and he never should have let that hope grow. A mutant turtle and a human girl? Not in his wildest dreams.

He raised his own hand, large fingers feather light on her cheek.

Even after that, after everything that she’d done, he couldn’t hurt April; not even a little.

“I’m sorry,” He said, voice hushed.

“Sorry? For what-,” April visibly stuttered as Donnie’s hand closed around her pendant. An array of emotions flickered across her face; anger, fear, confusion, and finally-

-hurt.

“Donnie, how could you?” April asked in a small voice, just as Donnie yanked the twine so it snapped.

Donnie’s Sensei had taught him many things. One of those things was how to act without prior thought.

The exact moment April’s necklace broke, she screamed as the connection was shattered. A burst of white light exploded, and it enveloped both her and Donnie.

Donnie’s last split second thought was that he was sorry, and he regretted being too blind to save April before she’d become this.

The Aeon shard cracked in his grip, the same time as Donnie’s mind was shredded in the backlash of April’s power.

They both collapsed on the roof, and with April’s control broken, every person she’d been inside the mind of followed them to the ground.

Donnie, unthinking and blank, shuddered one last time before his heart stopped.

 

 

 

April came back to consciousness at the sound of wailing sirens.

She sluggishly rolled over, head throbbing with every pitch in the alarms. April reached up to cover her ears, but flinched away when she brushed something smooth and fleshy.

The extra sensory input from her new appendages wasn’t helping her migraine at all.

April hacked, bile rising in her throat, and tried to get up on her hands and knees. Every movement made her vision sway, and the psychic feedback from the minds around her worsened it.

Everything around her felt like it was screaming directly into her brain, the raw fear and confusion spiraling up from the city disorienting her further.

April managed to drag her mental reach back into herself, putting up a block on it. The barrier wasn’t perfect, sharp jolts of thought still breaking in from the closest minds, but it gave her enough space to come back fully to herself.

She panted, finally moving to sit instead of kneel, and tried to make sense of what was happening.

There’d been a fight, she’d fought with one or all of the brothers, and then they’d- they’d done something, something horrible, _and it’d been her fault, she was one who’d caused it-_

April’s thoughts lurched, and she curled in on herself with her hands over her mouth.

The pendant. The shard. She’d been overwhelmed and didn’t even notice it was happening.

All those people working for Shredder, and then the Shredder himself, she’d made that happen, just reached into their heads and _torn them apart._

April choked on a sob, memories clearing of fog and letting her know exactly what she’d done.

She’d destroyed the Foot clan, and then opened a portal to do the same to the Kraang. She’d taken the power in Kraang Prime and used it on herself, twisting her mutant genes so she could amplify her powers even more.

And then she’d used them on her family. Again.

Not once, but three times she manipulated her family into doing exactly what she wanted.

Splinter, Leo, Raph, Mikey, _Donnie-_

April whipped her head up, because she’d last seen Donnie flying away from her in the explosion of power _she caused_ -

April caught sight of Donnie’s crumpled form, blank red eyes looking into nothingness, and she _wailed_. All of her sorrow, regret, pure and utter anguish, let out in a single long sound.

He was dead, not even a flutter of thought coming from his usually racing mind. He was dead and she’d killed him with her own two hands.

She was a monster; she’d taken everything good in her life and ruined it. They’d trusted her, loved her, and she’d turned back on them destroyed everything.

Why had she ever thought she was doing what was right, what in god’s name had she been _thinking?_ She couldn’t even protect her family with her powers, the one thing she wanted to use her fucked up genetics to do. But no, she’d become the thing hurt them; she was the reason they lay out on the roof top, minds scrambled and only just starting to wake up.

April’s tentacles rose up, light shining faintly on their tips, and she sent her family back to sleep. They didn’t need to see this, see her disgusting mutations or their brother and son _dead_ -

April sobbed, because even if the Aeon shard wasn’t invading her mind anymore, there was still the fallout of her actions.

They’d never forgive her, and she didn’t want them to.

“What do I do,” April whisper screamed, tentacles lashing anxiously around her head. “How do I fix this, _what do I do?_ ”

What would Donnie do?

April gulped three stinging breaths, grappling with her emotions to bring herself back under control.

Donnie would panic first, and then he’d prioritize.

First step, get rid of the alien fleet that had crashed when April lost connection. Second step, get them all out of sight. The army would already be on their way, and if they found her mutant family here they’d shoot on sight.

She could grieve later, when she’d dealt with the danger she’d placed them all in.

April opened her eyes and placed her finger tips to her temples. She felt her six tentacles rise up again, and the frill along her skull stand straight. Without the shard, it was harder to control so many Kraang at once, but they’d already spent so long under Kraang Prime’s control that their minds were practically mush.

April called all the ships up into the sky, and started filing them back into Dimension-X.

It was difficult to balance both herself and the many minds she was connected with, but April managed to stand up and survey how much damage she’d caused. Around the building she stood on, small and large fires were popping up in the distance. Acrid smoke mixed with the breeze, as emergency personal rushed to contain the blazes. Police vehicles raced past them far below, and the sound of people screaming could be heard even through the noise of the helicopters and cars.

April had to get them out of here, because even with all the chaos happening around them, someone at any moment could spot them on the rooftop.

April mentally pulled a single war ship towards them, and instructed the aliens inside to pick them up.

Only when they were all safe inside, her family laid out in newly emptied barracks and Donnie’s body covered with a sheet in the cargo bay, did April let herself start crying again.

The whine of the ship’s ascent into the atmosphere barely registered. All she knew was that they had to keep going keep getting as far away as possible from earth in the direction that felt right.

The ten soldiers on the ship were at her every whim, and brain dead just enough that she only had to brush their broken minds to control them. The four warm and familiar minds in the belly of the ship comforted and anchored April as she flew them deeper into space, even if she drowned in guilt over each one.

There were supposed to be five, but there weren’t and it was because of her.

It was all because of her.

 

 

 

April didn’t bother to check what happened to the Kraang she’d dumped in Dimension-X, without someone to lead them they posed no threat. So once she’d had them close the portals behind their exit back on earth, her connection had been cut; for good, because she didn’t plan on going back ever again.

From the feel of the ones with her now, it wasn’t likely the Kraang back in their home dimension would last very long. They’d die off without any interference from her.

A grim comfort, if it could be counted as such.

In the depths of space, with stars and planets passing them by, April tried to figure out what to do next.

Her new levels of psychic prowess still pulled her outwards to a quadrant of space, one they’d been to before, back when they traveled with professor Honeycutt. She wasn’t sure why, but if the universe thought it was a good place to go, she would.

There wasn’t anywhere else she wanted to be anyways, not with these _things_ sprouting from her head.

April grabbed one of her tentacles, squeezing the offending thing until she couldn’t stand the pain anymore. It figured that not only had she become a monster, but she looked the part too.

One of the brothers’ minds stirred back to wakefulness. Raph this time, still so forceful and unrelenting when he wanted to do something, and April sent him back under once more. She hadn’t kept track of time, but they’d been flying long enough that each one of the mutants below a level had woken up once each. That was Raph’s second time.  April didn’t want to enforce any more power on them than necessary, so she only touched their consciousness enough to send them back to sleep.

She’d done enough damage to her family already; she didn’t want to add to it.

Briefly, she thought of her father and Casey back on earth. What would they be thinking, of her, of the Hamato family’s disappearance?

She hadn’t said goodbye to either of them, not even reaching out with her psychics to check if they were alive before the ship left New York behind.

April had to remind herself that her father had lived through much worse than a minor invasion, and that Casey was more than likely to already be rushing around New York in his gear. In the time that she’d been in complete command of every human and mutant mind in New York, they’d both been healthy and alive. They’d be fine without her.

They’d be better off too, there was no way they’d want to be anywhere near her now. Not with all the blood on her hands.

April didn’t deserve to be with them anyways.

After the ship reached the destination she felt was right, she would send her adoptive family back to earth. Then she’d leave.

Maybe to the far edges of space, maybe life in general.

April hadn’t decided yet.

“We have arrived,” A Kraang droid reported over the com system. April nodded to no one, and got up off the floor. After the first hour of the flight, she’d gone and hidden herself away in what might have been a closet. In the dark, she hadn’t had to see herself with all her horrific mutations, or look at the aliens she’d mind jacked.

The door slide open, activated by a touch screen, and April trudged slowly up the stairs to the command center. The wide window in the hull gave her a good view of space, and of the wreckage floating in front of them.

Oh, it was this place. The downed ghost ship they’d encountered on their journey with the professor.

April’s lips formed a grim line; she could feel a pulse of power coming from the depths of the wrecked ship. One she’d only been able to faintly detect the first time they were here.

Now though, she could clearly hear the whispered screams of something not from this reality. It shuddered and scratched at the confines surrounding it, howling for freedom and destruction.

April’s intuition told her that this was what she was looking for, however disturbing the energy coming from it felt.

She left the command center, giving the droids there instructions to hold the ship where they’d stopped, and April descended into the cargo bay of the ship.

She needed to say goodbye, at least to Donnie, before she went to face whatever was calling her. April could feel it, that she wouldn’t come back from this.

Donnie was right where he’d been laid out, hidden under a thin metallic sheet from the storage area. It covered him head to foot, obscuring every part of him from sight.

This was the last time she’d see him, so April forced herself to lift away the edge to see his face.

Donnie’s scales had lost a lot of color from lack of blood flow, but other than that, it looked like he was just sleeping. His eyes were shut, and lips slightly parted; as though he’d finished a long night of science and had passed out on the first flat surface he found.

April knelt beside his shoulder, letting her tentacles fall loosely and trying to match Donnie’s stillness. Her slow breaths picked up though, as she tried to stifle the rise of emotions.

“I’m sorry, Donnie, I’m so sorry,” April whimpered, tears gathering in her eyes. “This is all my fault and you paid for it. I-I should have listened to you, you told me to stop and I _didn’t_ and I’m _so sorry_ -”

April broke off, scrubbing at her cheeks. No crying, she didn’t deserve to feel bad for herself, not when Donnie was lying lifelessly on the floor in front of her.

“-and the worst part is I said those _horrible_ things to you! You-you always did your best to make me happy and b-be my best friend and I did that to you. I was mind controlling your whole f-family and you were still trying to-to reach out to me and you didn’t even _hate me_ for it!”

April inhaled sharply, clutching herself and sobbing openly. “You didn’t hate me, not even for a damn second! I was this-this _monster_ and you kept right on loving me until the last second! God, Donnie, why didn’t you hate me?! You should have! You should have hated everything about me, b-but you didn’t!

“Why didn’t you hate me!?” April cried, pleading to the one person who’d loved her so completely that he’d given everything to save her. “I didn’t deserve that; you should never have l-loved me, especially after what I did to you. To all of us. And even-even after I said those horrid things, you kept loving me. I was in your head, I could see every part of th-that  love.

April sniffled, dragging her hands down her cheeks. “How could you? I was going to take over the whole world and you didn’t stop loving me. You- You got yourself _killed_ trying to save me, when you should have just let Leo put his sword through me. I wasn’t _me_ anymore Donnie, you knew that! You sh-shouldn’t have saved me, not when you could’ve saved yourself instead!”

April stopped, crying too hard to keep going. Her breath hurt her throat, and her cheeks were raw from how many times she’d rubbed away tears. It took several breaths before she could continue.

“I wish I loved you back the way you wanted, Donnie,” She said hoarsely. Because someone as genuine and caring as Donnie deserved someone who felt exactly the same he did. But she hadn’t. “I tried; I tried _so hard_ for _so long_ to love you back. But-but I couldn’t. And if I regret anything, out of everything I’ve done to our family, it’s that I broke your heart because I didn’t have enough feeling in my own for you.

“If I could have, I would’ve in a heartbeat Donnie. If I could have loved you the way you loved me, I would’ve given every inch of myself to you,” April reached out, laying her palm against Donnie’s deathly cold scales. “I wish I had, because even before I… _saw_ you all the way, I knew that you’d never stop loving me. I just. Couldn’t though. And it wasn’t because you’re a mutant, or that you lived underground, or anything about you Donnie. It’s because there’s just something wrong with me. And ‘cause of that, I couldn’t ever be the person you wanted me to be.”

Two more tears dripped from her chin, quietly splattering on the metal floor. April removed her hand from Donnie’s forehead, the coldness too much to stand anymore. She shifted her position, bringing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.

Only the quiet hum of the ship hung in the air, its soft thrum settling between April’s ribs. She sighed, tired and wrung out.

“I’ll never be able to fix this,” April murmured, her tentacles slithering slowly through the air. She didn’t bother to try and bring them back to her sides, she didn’t care enough anymore. “But something about that thing out there, whatever it is, feels like it could at least make this better. Somehow. I don’t know how though, there’s no way anything could make this better.

“I’m going to try anyways; because I owe you that much. I owe everyone that much. I just. Wanted to say goodbye before I went. Because one way or another, I don’t think I’ll be coming back. I’m going to have one of the Kraang drones stay behind and pilot the ship until... well, until whatever happens, happens. Your brothers can figure it out from there. They’ve driven a Kraang ship before.

“…I don’t know how I’m supposed to break this to them. About you. I don’t… I can’t stay here and tell them myself. I think Leo would kill me. Not that I wouldn’t deserve it, because I do… but I feel like I still have something to do. If that doesn’t, I don’t know, fix at least _something_ about this fucked up mess I’ve made, then I guess I’ll just find a sun somewhere and jump into it.

“…I’m sorry, Donnie, for everything,” April said, eyes finally dried up and voice scratching against her throat. “For this, and for not loving you; you deserved so much better.”

The four minds one level above flared, all of them simultaneously trying to fight their way back to consciousness. Time to go then.

April brushed a hand across Donnie’s forehead one last time, before she covered him back up with the sheet. The pink lighting of the ships interior reflected off the shiny surface, giving Donnie’s faux burial shroud an eerie glow.

Shining bright with life and potential, even in death.

April left his corpse there, not looking back for fear she’d lose her regained composure. She prayed that he at least got a proper funeral, or as close as his family could get with the limited resources they had.

April flicked the touch pad on her way past, and the thick bay door slid shut.

 

 

 

In the end, April left a mental message for each of her mutant family members; a brief series of flashes, of Donnie, of her, and where his body would be.

She stopped only for a moment, in the doorway of the barracks, to see them one last time. The wounds she’d led them to receive were bandaged, and stood out against their green skin. Splinter was almost too long for the platform he lay out on, and his tail hung over the edge.

They seemed so out of place on this ship, their organic lives contrasting with the soulless metallic. She was glad that soon, they’d be flying to home and relative safety.

Without her, without the Kraang, without even the Shredder to worry about anymore, maybe they could live a peaceful life. And even if they didn’t, they’d be strong enough to make it.

But without Donnie though, what would happen to them as a family? What kind of life had she sentenced them to, missing such a vital piece of themselves?

April’s father had never been the same after her mother died. With the tightly knit Hamato family, what would the death of one of their members do? They had no one else, save Casey now. Donnie made up a huge chunk of their world, how would they cope with the death of their third eldest?

April wouldn’t ever know, because she’d never find out.

Let them blame her, let them rage and curse her name until the day they died, if that’s what it took to make them feel better.

Let them hate her, for causing this in the first place and then running away; she deserved every second of that hate.

April didn’t shut the door to barracks, leaving it wide open for whenever one of them woke. No need to make them think they were prisoners.

She was done trapping people, in their minds or otherwise.

 

 

 

 

April didn’t need to find a space suit that made oxygen, not with how she’d changed her body.

All she needed was a small collar, created to clip around a Kraang droid’s neck for deep space missions. It gave the wearer a small bubble of atmosphere, providing the same sort of ‘air’ that permeated Dimension-X.

April’s lungs could breathe both dimensions’ air now, and the collar was all she needed to step out into the void called space.

With her telekinesis, she flew herself and the nine Kraang droids over to the wrecked ship’s hull. Behind her, the war ship soundlessly turned itself from the giant space vessel and shot off. The single piloting Kraang would keep going until they got to earth, cloaked and invisible.

April would put good money though, on one of the brothers on board killing that Kraang before they even got near earth.

Maybe Leo, maybe Raph; an off chance it could be Mikey. For all of his bubbling cheer, he had a side of anger he kept strictly in check. The death of his brother might be enough to break that control.

April didn’t know what Splinter would do; he was too enigmatic at times for her to read properly. Even after having complete access to his mind, April couldn’t pin down how he’d react.

Not that it mattered really, what with her never seeing any of them again.

April led her procession into the ancient ship, the creeping and screaming power leading her path. The interior looked exactly as before; just as decrepit and dark as the last time she’d seen it. The mummified bodies of dead passengers littered the way, adding to the effect of horror as they hung from the ceiling.

In no time, she reached the end of the long hallway that held the source of the power. A cube hovered above the floor, radioactive glow swirling from inside.

Whatever the thing was, it held immense power. While it couldn’t physically touch the world around it, the energy of chaos thrummed through the ship; radiating a song of destruction, creation, and insanity all at once.

April raised her hand, and brought the cube over to float in front of her. It wasn’t large, but the presence held inside it could span worlds, maybe galaxies. She turned it over, searching for a way to open it. There was no latch though, and no buttons either.

A word, a phrase, she felt like she needed to say something to get it open.

“I wish I knew what this was,” April muttered, tracing a finger along the points of the cube.

And just like that, she knew _exactly_ what she was holding, and who was inside it.

The box shuddered as April pressed down on the right spots, and lightening shot out of it; thunder echoing despite the lack of sound in space. Hot blue steam blew out of it as it spun away, swirling into a condensed shape as deep laughter rung out. Red eyes blinked through the smoke, staring right into April’s tainted soul.

“Well hello, hello, hello!” The Wyrm cheered, bouncing jauntily on his tentacle leg like it was a spring. “Nice to meet’cha, and how ya doing? The name’s Wyrm, but you already knew that. What can I do for you today lil lady? You’ve already got all those rules of mine in your head, thanks to that splendid first wish of yours, so we can cut right to the chase!”

April examined the creature in front of her, his bizarre form and miasma of chaotic power. Well, her intuition had certainly led her to something. Question was, what was the trick to it? The Wyrm had indeed given her all the knowledge she needed to make wishes, but her sensitivities said not to try making another one just yet.

There was a catch, but what was it?

April almost face palmed. Of course, she could just take that information by force; there wasn’t need to beat around the bush or attempt to puzzle it out.

“Hey, wait, what’re you tryiiiing-” Wyrm’s voice slurred; April’s immense power unlocking itself from her brain and wrapping its binding net around his mind.

April’s inner balance tilted violently as she met the pure _otherness_ of Wyrm’s mind, the fifth dimensional being so completely alien from every mind she’d seen up till then.

He was an incarnation of pure chaos, living outside the forces of life and death; he was insanely over powered and ready to burn the universe to the ground just for a laugh. But he couldn’t yet; he needed certain conditions to be met first.

It was like reading every foreign language all at once, thoughts not even decipherable, just the intentions behind them. April felt like she was on fire as she translated the meaning of each thought, the Wyrm’s power bleeding outwards and into her mind.

He wanted out of his prison, he wanted freedom to destroy and create as he saw fit; just like he had when he helped create their universe on a whim. If April made her wishes, that’s what would happen; the annihilation of tranquility and peace across the entire universe.

Not happening, not in a million years.

Wyrm might have come from a higher plane of existence, might have had eons and eons to master his abilities, but he was old; and even immortal beings aged, eventually becoming lesser. He’d been trapped for so long, that compared to the potential in April, he was old hat.

April didn’t have the Aeon shard anymore, but her powers hadn’t diminished so much that she couldn’t do this. If she lived long enough, her powers would again reach the level she’d been at with the shard assisting her.

She wasn’t going to live very long though, she could feel it, so she took a chance and ripped the power of chaos from the paradox that was Wyrm.

April stole the very essence that made up Wyrm, tearing it from his ageless flesh and shoving it into her own. Wyrm’s death shriek shook the walls of the ship, killing all of April’s Kraang soldiers. April could feel it echoing out into the far reaches of space, announcing the end and beginning of an infinity.

April’s tentacles thrashed as her body took the endless power into itself, the body of Wyrm vaporizing into nothingness as he died.

It shouldn’t have been possible, but everything that had been the Wyrm _was_ impossibility. All April had had to do was exploit that, and take it for herself.

April was killed, reborn, and ascended all at once; her very existence changing to accommodate the brand new paradox within her body.

She was life, she was death, and she held the universe in her palm and all the short lives burning within it. April was a god, and the universe was her toy. She could do anything to it, to reality and everything within it, and nothing would stop her.

She was free, free from anything that could ever hurt her again.

April’s mortal body incinerated itself, and she cast her soul into the very fabric of time and space; screaming joy, exhilaration, and ecstasy into the makeup of eternity.

She spread herself across the universe, tendrils of thought touching each life they came across. Thousands, millions, billions, they lived and died so quickly; flecks of dust in the face of the marching eternity called existence.

April stretched outwards until she reached the boundaries of reality, and then she went further; reaching into the spaces that never were.

Laughter bubbled in her mind, shaking the foundations of the universe in her glee. Nothing could touch her like this; no one could even _attempt_ to hurt her.

What an experience, the complete lack of fear for or of anything. April felt like she’d been bound tightly her whole life, kept from what she could be, _would be_ , and then the binds had been cut away all at once.

She shrunk her consciousness back down, keeping it to a single galaxy, and she started to investigate everything living or dead within it.

How quickly everything moved, but at the same time, too slow! It was maddening, except it wasn’t, because madness was what moved the cycle of creation and destruction. Chaos was needed to prevent the universe from becoming stale and dying from stagnation.

Life was chaos, death was chaos, and April was all of those and it felt glorious.

Four minds though, they drew her attention; passing through what once had been her palm to the mental map of her body.

She knew them, they were important, who were they?

April peered closer, rescinding almost all of her existence to cluster around the flying ship with those four minds. They were in turmoil, each one of them. Why was that? What did they have to be upset about?

Why did she care about them, when they were so insignificant compared to her?

She traced each one of them, and found deep sorrow and regret, mixed with magma hot flashes of sadness and rage. April shrunk further, almost on the same plane of existence as the minds now, and listened closely.

The myriad of thoughts and emotions slowly took shape, becoming something she could understand. Each individual mind became clear to April, their lives and souls laid out for her to see.

Oh.

It was her family.

How could she have forgotten?

How could she let herself be overwhelmed once again by her own powers?

April remembered now, why she’d become an endless being in the first place. The promise she’d made to the people she loved, and the mistakes she had to rectify.

April ached to take Donnie’s extinguished life force and bring it back, but she knew that wouldn’t work. His soul had already gone, and bringing it back would just disrupt his natural cycle between the three worlds of death, life, and rebirth.

If she did that, he’d be doomed to a painful existence with a festering soul; unable to die completely, and forced to continue existing long after his body gave out. Trapped inside the essence of his former life forever.

She couldn’t bring him back, no matter how much she wanted or wished.

But.

There was another thing she could do.

April soothingly brushed against each mind on the ship, whispering how much she loved each one of her family members and how sorry she was. Their existences blazed under her touch, responding to the infinity she’d become.

April said goodbye to them, and promised that they’d all see each other again soon.

She released her light hold on them, and spiraled away, back into the universe. April grew and grew, unfurling each layer of her powers old and new, until she was like a carnation in full bloom. Every single one of her trillions of petals peeled away to show her core.

April took that core of power, the power over minds, reality, and fate itself, and made a wish.

_“Stop this from ever happening, stop me from becoming this, destroy this entire timeline and me with it.”_

Three wishes, just like how Wyrm would have freed himself. Now, April used them to tear the fabric of reality apart piece by piece.

The future ahead of them all collapsed first, the stream of time shattering under April’s command. The present splintered, the gears that turned time coming loose and scattering the lives being lived. April felt her family cease to exist; Splinter, Mikey, Raph, Leo, Casey, her father… they all vanished along with the present.

April let herself be tugged backwards through time, following the trail that led to the moment that had created this timeline.

And there, there it was. Or rather, there _she_ was. Human and mortal; Kraang mutations still hidden under her skin and her powers a mere candle wick to her hell fire in the future.

They’d just come back from space, Honeycutt taking their past/present selves to the stratosphere and their group preparing to finally go home after months of fighting a war.

April, unseen by anything and everyone, spun her essence around her past self. How had she ever been so naïve? So small minded and blind? Everything had been laid out before her, and she’d made one bad decision after another.

April reached out, tenderly sweeping over her other self’s younger mind.

So fragile, and yet so much potential; she hoped this version of her would make better choices than she had.

April tugged on the strings of fate, and undid her own existence. A small crack appeared inside the stem of the shard, diminishing the amplification abilities it held. Now, this new April would never be consumed by the siren’s call of power within it. It would give her assistance yes, but the stores of power inside it had been locked away by that single imperfection.

The version of April she was, the doomed one, the one who’d devastated her own timeline, sighed as she fell apart one piece at a time.

Her all-encompassing vision dimmed, and the universe darkening until she could only see the one world in front of her. She felt what had become of her limbs break apart, the cracks following up her body to her mind.

April would have cried if she could, feeling the end of her existence coming for her. She’d done it, everything would be fine now. Her family would live on and reach the end of their journey without interference, at least not from her.

As April’s remaining fragments of self became dust, she managed to see Donnie one last time. Alive and happy, a perpetually nervous smile aimed _his_ April’s way. He’d live a long life, April could see the entirety of his destiny’s path; Donnie would live to be a major player in this timeline’s fate, and his brothers as well.

She had seen them do the impossible, over and over, but she never could have imagined just how strongly they’d affect the course of history. They would change the world one day, and would live to see the new age they created.

And she’d be with them, every step of the way. Just like it was always meant to be.

April smiled, at peace with her life and death, and let paradox space take her into oblivion.

 

 

 

April shuddered violently, her vision suddenly jumping as something changed around her.

Immediately, her hand went to the shard the Aeons’ had given her, drawing slightly on its power in case this was a last minute attack from one of their enemies.

“April? You alright?” Donnie asked, turning his head and looking at her with concern.

For a split second, April saw his eyes staring blankly and his scales pale without blood, and her heart stuttered. Then the vision was gone, and it was just Donnie again, looking worried as he always did.

April breathed a sigh, dropping her pendant and feeling silly. “I’m fine, just a little post-fight jitters I guess.”

Donnie smiled lopsidedly, nodding. “I get that. You want some tea when we get back, to help settle your nerves?”

“Yeah, I’d like that a lot, thanks,” April said gratefully. She picked up the pace again, rejoining the rest of their family slightly ahead. Donnie fell into step beside her, just close enough to be comforting after such a harrowing night.

April let her arm brush against his, raised scales rubbing against her human skin. She needed to be assured of his presence for some reason right then, more than usual.

Donnie’s eyes darted over to her’s, and his smile was full of warmth and understanding.

He opened his hand to her, and she took it.

They walked together at the back of their family, cold and warm hands linked between them, as the city lights lit their way home.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

_“Take my hand and lead the way_

_Out of the darkness and into the light of the day_

_And take me somewhere I'll be safe_

_Carry my lifeless body away from the pain_

_'Cause I know what I've been missing_

_And I know that I should try_

_But there's hope in this admission_

_And there's freedom in your eyes_

_And we cry away_

_I'm sick and tired of being afraid_

_If I cry anymore then my tears will wash me away_

_But when I hear you call my name_

_I whisper the word that I never thought I'd ever say_

_And I hope to God you'll listen_

_And you'll keep me safe from harm_

_'Cause I found what I was missing_

_When I fell into your arms_

_And we cry away_

_I can feel the darkness coming_

_And I'm afraid of myself_

_Call my name and I'll come running_

_'Cause I just need some help”_

  * _Help by Hurts_



 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hotmilkytea on tumblr is occasionally very salty about April's lack of development, and they helped inspire my writing of this. You can all thank them for this AU's existence. (Anyone else notice how they dropped the ball about April's possible super villain arc? Yeah, thanks Tea for pointing that out, I'm pretty salty about it myself now.)
> 
> Since the title is stupidly long, my partner and I nicknamed it 'Absolute Power' for easy discussion. If anyone wants to talk about, complain about, or compliment AP, feel free to stop by my tumblr, onthespectrumwriting. I do these prompts every month, and will probably continue to for the next forever.
> 
> I don't have much else to say about this, other than I totally would have let April crush the world under her heel; no dictator could've been better. I'm all for power (crazy) ladies to kick ass in literature, and miss O'neil is no exception.
> 
> The show should give her some better everything really. I'm hoping for an uptake in her character development come next season, but I doubt it. Their work has been shoddy at best so far, and unless some new writers have stepped up, it doesn't look like there'll be improvement.
> 
> I still have fanfiction at least, bless ao3.
> 
> I had a lot of fun/frustration working on this, and it was worth it! Hope you all enjoyed Kraang queen April as much as I did, she was a beauty. (Also, credit to whichever artist on tumblr first came up with that idea, I loved that picture you did and it really helped shape the end of AP. I just wish I hadn't forgotten who you were.)
> 
> G'night ya'll, thanks for stopping by!


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